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Post by aphasia on Jun 8, 2010 19:57:27 GMT 7
howdy
i'm looking to purchase 3 2TB hard drives for a n5200Pro i have lying around. specifically the green/low power (5xxx rpm spindle speed) which are pretty cheap atm ($160 AUD). i'm looking at these mainly b/c they're almost half the price of the 7200 cousins and run at a lower temp.
the candidates are the 'Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB 5900RPM 32MB (ST32000542AS)' and 'Western Digital Caviar Green Power 2TB 64MB SATA 3Gbs (WD20EARS)'. however i'm a little concerned about some of the features on both drives.
i know the seagate drive is on the thecus compatible list but the updated WD drive isn't (the WD20EADS 32MB is listed but the WD20EARS 64MB isn't) so i don't know if this is an issue.
from what i've read the seagate drive edges out the WD drive performance wise probably due to its higher 5900 spindle speed. the seagate drive however uses the older 'contact start-stop' (CSS) tech where the heads actually physically park on the disk platter. the WD uses the newer 'ramp loading' parking tech for the heads (head never touches the disk platter). another concerning issue with the seagate disk is the rated 'load/unload cycles' of 50,000 where as the WD is rated at 300,000.
there also seems to be an issue with the WD drive parking/unparking the head during operation. also a potential issue with the WD is the 4K sectors (advanced format) tech. is the thecus FW going to have a problem with 4K sectors as opposed to the traditional 512byte sectors? i know there is a performance hit with XP having to emulate 8 512b per 4K sector. i'm assuming the linux os doesn't have the same issue as winXP but i'd like to be sure.
anyway thoughts or experience with either drive would be welcome.
cheers.
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Post by stooartbaby on Jun 9, 2010 8:29:56 GMT 7
hi there, I have 4 ST32000542AS drives in my 4200, the speed etc is absolutely fine, though the unit has never been very stressed. If I had my time again, i think I would not choose seagate... I am getting this annoying clicking noise when the drives are at idol. Now it is very possible that this is due to the NAS and not the drives, but i am yet to get an answer of this... If you do end up going with the 2TB seagates, i would be interested to see if you get the clicking as well?? please let me know Stuart.
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Post by aphasia on Jun 9, 2010 16:46:56 GMT 7
howdy stooartbaby at the moment i'm leaning towards the WD drives as they seem less prone to potential issues. according to seagate specs, their 2TB drives have a reduced 'load/unload cycles' and 'non-recoverable reads errors per bit reads' compared to its peers. full review here; hothardware.com/articles/Definitive-2TB-Hard-Drive-Roundup/regarding your 'clicking noise', there are only 2 sets of moving parts in the NAS, the hard drives and the fans. easy to isolate, just disconnect the fans from their headers. if there is still a 'clicking', its the hard drive(s). generally if your hard drive is clicking, its not a good sign. if it were me, i'd be backing my data up and have a stand-by drive ready.
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Post by megabyte on Jun 23, 2010 6:29:37 GMT 7
So... What's the Scoop on the WD20EARS?
I'm in the same boat, just running with an N4100pro.
The WD20EADS is significantly more expensive than the WD20EARS and it's older and harder to source.
Is there a planned firmware upgrade to support these drives? Will they run with the existing firmware?
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Post by aphasia on Jun 25, 2010 13:19:26 GMT 7
howdy megabyte i dont think a firmware update is possible (from WD20EADS to WD20EARS) as they are slightly different drives. from my understanding the WD20EARS is the newer drive sporting an extra 32mb cache (64mb total). is it the WD20EARS more expensive? have to check retailer. the WD20EARS is a minor update from the older WD20EADS. i might start looking at the samsung drive (ecogreen F3 2TB). haven't read of any issues relating to this drive yet (or benchmarks). they're a little more expensive (extra $10 - $20 in AUD). only issue is that the samsung isn't on the thecus 'compatible drive list' atm N5200_N5200PRO_1U4500_HDD_list_2010-04-12.pdf www.thecus.com/Downloads/HDD_List/N5200_N5200PRO_1U4500_HDD_list_2010-04-12.pdfi'll post my results which ever way i go. cheers.
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Post by megabyte on Jun 25, 2010 14:17:42 GMT 7
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Post by doubleh2003 on Jun 25, 2010 18:22:48 GMT 7
So... What's the Scoop on the WD20EA RS? I'm in the same boat, just running with an N4100pro. The WD20EADS is significantly more expensive than the WD20EARS and it's older and harder to source. Is there a planned firmware upgrade to support these drives? Will they run with the existing firmware? Hi, I bought three WD15EARS for my N0503 NAS. The huge difference is that the EARS discs do not support TLER ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limited_Error_Recovery). Without this option you can not certain use this discs within a NAS. You will get problems with the error recovery of your NAS. I now do have this problem and the only way to fix is is to buy new discs. If someone else has fixed this issue I would be very thankful for this information. With best regards, René
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Post by megabyte on Jun 25, 2010 18:42:40 GMT 7
Wow, thanks for the heads-up doubleh!
I won't touch the WD20EARS drives then unless Thecus decides to support them.
Cheers, you may have saved me a lot of dosh and heartache.
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Post by aphasia on Jun 25, 2010 20:17:14 GMT 7
thanks for the info also doubleh.
distressing news regarding your situation. the wiki you linked to suggested pulling the affected drive and plugging it back in and wait for the RAID rebuild (providing the drive isn't totally screwed).
disappointing that neither Seagate or WD 2TB green drives cannot be used safely in a RAID environment. at least the samsung F3 2TB drive has RAID error handling (CCTL) though it has to be manually enabled.
when it comes time for me to purchase HDs, i'll contact thecus and ask if the samsung drive(s) are ok to use.
cheers.
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Post by doubleh2003 on Jun 26, 2010 18:14:48 GMT 7
Thanks for your reply,
and I did rebuild the raid at present three times. But I think that is not the "use-case" of a NAS. I do have an other important information (maybe for Thecus too). The problem only occures if you stop/start the NAS. I switch mine off every night (at present it's not running anyway;) therefore the problem occures regularly. A possible workarround would be to keep the NAS running (7x24). My use-case is to have a "cheap" possibility to backup my data and use some more features.
I will wait a bit till Thecus is testing some more discs and then purchase some more discs.
So good luck to you all to find a hard disc of your choise which works within the NAS.
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Post by aphasia on Jun 27, 2010 16:45:49 GMT 7
doubleh
i think the trend here is one must be carefull of these so-call low cost / large disks (low power, low rpm green HDs). my original n5200 (non-pro) NAS is still going after 4yrs of use with the same hard disks. however those disks weren't cheap back in 2006. my 1st 3 HDs cost approx $500 each. the last 2 i bought over a year later filled the last 2 bays were much cheaper. those were seagate ST3750640AS 750GB drives.
i run my NAS a little differently from you. mine is powered up 24/7, however all the drives spin down after 60mins of inactivity. the only issue i've had (so far) with my thecus unit is the power supply died a month ago. took me awhile to figure out the problem but it all good now.
perhaps the only way to go is to cough-up the cash for decent desktop 7200 rpm or enterprise drives (that support RAID error handling) instead of these cheapie eco 2TB drives.
cheers.
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Post by rookie on Jun 30, 2010 3:55:04 GMT 7
In my experience you can better stay away from the WD EARS drive with Thecus NAS for this moment.
Just sold my 2 WD EARS drives because of very poor performance and now have WD RE4 drives. Very expensive, but hey super performance!
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Post by shinger on Jul 30, 2010 1:22:36 GMT 7
Guys i was wondering. If the 2 TB harddisks are supported by N5200B Pro the hardware would not work against it right? So everytime something would not work thecus usually releases a new firmware but firmware is software it has nothing to do with hardware so if you have modified your N5200B Pro that it runs other version of linux (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server) you could just install all kind of harddisks?
Or do you have to flash the bios to accomplish that?
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Post by aphasia on Oct 29, 2010 15:30:16 GMT 7
howdy shinger
considering the n5200 is a cut-down pc (itx motherboard?) most magnetic HDs should work. generally the limiting factors with the n5200 is the firmware (thecus linux OS on DOM module) and CPU.
when the n5200 was first released it was the fastest (in its price range) on the market. however as hard drives have gotten bigger, the CPU has started to struggled to keep up with maintaining the HDs (rebuilding RAID taking days instead of hours). from what i've gathered, this is why thecus don't recommend drives 1.5TB+ for the non pro version.
In short, most drives should be fine (tho check the sticky at top of forum regarding users experiences with different drives).
from my own research i'm finding the cheap eco drives (the 5***rpm drives segate and WD are flogging) will have issues with the thecus units. it seems the reason for this is b/c the eco HD aren't designed for RAID arrays as the drives are hobbled to some extent to cut costs for the desktop and OEM market. some of the things culled from these drives are enterprise features like error handling and decent heads. samsung and hitachi drives seem to fare better in this regard
another thing i'm still looking into and yet to find an answer for is the the new 4KB sectors that many of the 1.5TB HDs use and almost all 2TB HDs use. from what i've read, by 2011 all HDs will have transitioned to 4KB sectors from 512byte sectors. i'm not sure if the thecus firmware will be able to handle this properly. if your using byo flavour of linux, there is built in software to manage this whether is automatic or manual.
don't quote me on this tho someone else on the forum might know, but i don't think you'll need to worry about the BIOS. course you'd have to connect a 15pin VGA header to the motherboard to check.
i'm still looking to replace my 5 750GB with 2TB drives myself. i've noticed samung have released a new 2TB F4 ecogreen (HD204UI) drive. they're pretty cheap here too, around $100 AUD so it's d**n tempting. i'm just waiting on some more info to popup on the net about them.
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Post by shinger on Oct 31, 2010 22:12:44 GMT 7
howdy shinger considering the n5200 is a cut-down pc (itx motherboard?) most magnetic HDs should work. generally the limiting factors with the n5200 is the firmware (thecus linux OS on DOM module) and CPU. when the n5200 was first released it was the fastest (in its price range) on the market. however as hard drives have gotten bigger, the CPU has started to struggled to keep up with maintaining the HDs (rebuilding RAID taking days instead of hours). from what i've gathered, this is why thecus don't recommend drives 1.5TB+ for the non pro version. In short, most drives should be fine (tho check the sticky at top of forum regarding users experiences with different drives). from my own research i'm finding the cheap eco drives (the 5***rpm drives segate and WD are flogging) will have issues with the thecus units. it seems the reason for this is b/c the eco HD aren't designed for RAID arrays as the drives are hobbled to some extent to cut costs for the desktop and OEM market. some of the things culled from these drives are enterprise features like error handling and decent heads. samsung and hitachi drives seem to fare better in this regard another thing i'm still looking into and yet to find an answer for is the the new 4KB sectors that many of the 1.5TB HDs use and almost all 2TB HDs use. from what i've read, by 2011 all HDs will have transitioned to 4KB sectors from 512byte sectors. i'm not sure if the thecus firmware will be able to handle this properly. if your using byo flavour of linux, there is built in software to manage this whether is automatic or manual. don't quote me on this tho someone else on the forum might know, but i don't think you'll need to worry about the BIOS. course you'd have to connect a 15pin VGA header to the motherboard to check. i'm still looking to replace my 5 750GB with 2TB drives myself. i've noticed samung have released a new 2TB F4 ecogreen (HD204UI) drive. they're pretty cheap here too, around $100 AUD so it's d**n tempting. i'm just waiting on some more info to popup on the net about them. Oke my question has been answered. I dont really care that it takes days to rebuild the RAID. At the moment i have HD no 1 on BJOD and HD no 2,3,4,5 on RAID5. They are all 1 TB. Im planning to upgrade them to 3 TB. Could i just replace no 2 then wait for rebuilding and if that is done go to the no 3 etc. etc.? Or do i have to do something else?
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